Here's my trusty XT8. Some of the modifications I've made include: flocking the tube and focuser, adding adjustable feet and a 2-axis bubble level to the base, mounting a compass with reversed adjustable bezel to the base (handy for knowing your azimuth), adding brackets to mount a lead acid battery to power the fans and homemade dew heaters, made a little control box for the dew heaters and fans, upgraded the primary, added a telrad and green laser pointer (not shown in photo), added an imperial decal, and supplied some refrigerator magnets for holding star charts near the eyepiece.

Nah, they're too busy humping in the bush or doing other roo'd things. They like dried fruit!.

He he he. Can you setup/take down that thing yourself? Any idea what the primary weighs?

Very easy. By the foot of the table you will see a silver handle, it is a 20kg weight that I use with a rope to hold down the truss cage to put the uta on/off. The mirror on its own is as you would expect very heavy, I can just barely handle it by myself ( not a good idea though ). Scope overall is easy to transport and setup.
The views are tremendous, I love it!.

Nah, they're too busy humping in the bush or doing other roo'd things. They like dried fruit!.

He he he. Can you setup/take down that thing yourself? Any idea what the primary weighs?

Very easy. By the foot of the table you will see a silver handle, it is a 20kg weight that I use with a rope to hold down the truss cage to put the uta on/off. The mirror on its own is as you would expect very heavy, I can just barely handle it by myself ( not a good idea though ). Scope overall is easy to transport and setup.
The views are tremendous, I love it!.

Amazing. Well you certainly earn your views and get some weight training too.

Here's my 12" Antares. Probably the BEST upgrades on it was the Velstrap handles to help carry the OTA and the setting circles that I just tried out last night. Just had Majestic re-coat the mirrors and added a telrad. Next up will be an equatorial platform I hope.

I'm very satisfied with them. I bought this scope last fall for $250 and at that price I was able to do some work to it. I would like to upgrade the focuser to a 2 speed at some point. The biggest improvement (after the re-coat) was Catseye collimation tools and learning to use them.